So we keep an older guy @ Point? and give up young talent and hard working types in DeRozan and Lowry? great choice.

Calderon outshines Lowry because he has been here for the last 6 years or is it 7 now? the chemistry he has is at an all time high. Lowry is te better player and should be our go to pg he just doesn't know the personnel much yet.

I admire Calderon's abilities on the floor and his demeanor off of it but lets be serious here moving forward we need young and a core Calderon isn't the answer may not even be Lowry but we cant be getting older instead of having a young system that grows together.

I think what bothers me often on this board is people seeing a tiny bit of success and becoming too attached to players. This team needs to consider each and every player as something it can move to become better.

+1

If we had top 5 player who is happy to be here and also the face of the franchise, then it might be a different situation. But that won't happen with anyone on the current roster.

I regret the time I wasted forming a rebuttal, you useless piece of trash.

Enough with the personal insult replies. Just because people disagree with your initial post, it doesn't give you the right to attack them, as opposed to attacking their arguments. Please don't force my hand with regards to a ban... keep it respectful.

I love Jose, but I don't agree with the premise of this thread that he should be kept over Lowry. Jose is just being Jose. He's always played better as a starter. When everybody was blaming Lowry for the slow start, little blame was placed on Jose. He didn't do very well in the games he came off the bench and certainly didn't win any games for us in that capacity. As a starter, the only team that we've beaten that currently have an above .500 record is Indiana. So we haven't beaten anybody that we didn't have a legitimate chance of beating.

Now Lowry has done well coming off the bench, but he'll never truly accept that role. He'll never stay past his current contract if that's the case. If I'm a member of the MLSE board, I would question why we traded a lottery-guaranteed pick for a guy who after half a season is no longer part of the core. I would question the leadership of the team. Jose is a good point guard, but wasn't the decision made the day we traded for Lowry who the point guard of the future is going to be?

Just a comment on the Wiggins sweepstake. If I'm an owner and my GM comes to me to get a deal approved for my "hypothetical" 2014 first round pick that would leave it unprotected, I'd fire the sonofabitch on the spot. The only pick that's going to get us Wiggins is our own. There's a good chance we'll miss the playoffs next year, maybe we'll get lucky and win the lottery.

Enough with the personal insult replies. Just because people disagree with your initial post, it doesn't give you the right to attack them, as opposed to attacking their arguments. Please don't force my hand with regards to a ban... keep it respectful.

And they were 1 of only 2 teams over the past 21 years that won the lottery with the worst record. 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th worst won it once each, 6th worst 2x, 5th and 3rd worst 5x, 4th worst never, 2nd worst 4x. With that history, how do you plan on having the "xth" worst record that's going to win the lottery in your planned year? Get all the other teams to comply with your plan, then fix the lottery, which isn't possible?

And they were 1 of only 2 teams over the past 21 years that won the lottery with the worst record. 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th worst won it once each, 6th worst 2x, 5th and 3rd worst 5x, 4th worst never, 2nd worst 4x. With that history, how do you plan on having the "xth" worst record that's going to win the lottery in your planned year? Get all the other teams to comply with your plan, then fix the lottery, which isn't possible?

The discussion/debate in this thread has been well thought out and entertaining for the most part, as it usually is here on RR. Lets just all remember to be respectful to fellow posters, regardless of what you may desire/wish/pray happens to them! We don't want to have to be hall monitors, nor do we want to be forced to slap anybody else with a 24-hour ban...

Not sure. However, I'm fairly positive that they got Lebron with their OWN draft pick not one they had traded for.

slaw wrote:

Pat Riley and his 2012 championship ring say hello.

Why don't we ask all the other teams that cleared cap space to sign lebron and didn't get him to see how that worked out. As well as ask Dallas how their clearing of cap space to get Deron worked out, or ask them how they feel about signing a bunch of 1 year contracts so they could sign Chris Paul or Dwight Howard this off season. Since their owner, and star player are on record saying that their odds of doing so are not looking so good right now, I think it safe to say that it is not a fool-proof strategy.

BUT as you point out, clearing cap space to sign MAX FREE AGENTS did work out for Miami, but that is not the plan put forward by the opening post. No, the opening post wants DRAFT PICKS so that we can land the number one pick in the 2014 draft and thus draft Andrew Wiggins.

Miami's situation is much different than ours. Miami already had a bone fide franchise player in Dwayne Wade, plus they were going after two MAX players, sure Lebron was number one, but I'm sure that if Chris Bosh had decided to sign elsewhere they would have been happy to sign Amare or Boozer. Also, they were looking to sign a free agent(s), not draft a particular player, especially a number one draft pick. The reason why Miami and a number of other teams cleared all that cap space was because there were SEVERAL max or questionably max players on the market. So even though NYN and CHI missed out on Lebron they signed other max or near max players in Amare and Boozer. Although, everyone wanted Lebron, there were still several other quality players to take a run at.

So clearly, clearing cap space to take a run a max players doesn't work out for everyone, BUT CAN work out for some. I am happy to concede that clearing cap space to sign free agents, is BY FAR a much better strategy than trying to some how manage to get the number one pick in any particular draft.

In fact, if we change the original argument from "cash in all our assets for 2014 draft picks to land Andrew Wiggins" to
"cash in all our assets for 2014 draft picks because 2014 is regarded by experts to be a very deep draft with lost of talent" then I'm willing to get on board, or at least think about it further.

Has a team ever traded for a draft pick that turned out to be the number 1 pick? As I pointed out earlier, to my knowledge every draft pick traded has the caveat of being "top 3 protected". If someone was willing to point out to me how we get around that clause--actually demonstrate that there is any likely hood of this happening WHATSOEVER other than getting lucky and having our own pick win the draft, then I would be willing to pull back my stance a bit. Trade for all the draft picks you want, but if all of the draft picks that you trade for, literally have ZERO chance of getting the number one pick because of the "top three protected" clause, and your whole strategy is to get the top protected pick, then you are choosing a strategy that guarantees you won't get the outcome you are looking for. AND personally I don't see how there could be a strategy that could be worse than one that takes steps to ENSURE it WON'T get want it is setting out to do.

You'd be better off trying to acquire good pieces and draft picks and try to make a draft day trade, but again I think those odds are very low, although they have at least a small chance of actually occurring, which is more than we can say of the initial argument.

However, if we can concede that this plan WILL NOT help us acquire Wiggins, I'd be happy to discuss whether this would be a good plan to just acquire the draft picks and take the BPA with the picks that we get.

EDIT:

It's very rare for me to be this emphatic about a line of reasoning, but I really don't see any conceivable way any draft picks we trade for turn into Andrew Wiggins, because either the picks we trade for don't end up winning the lottery, or they do, but then revert back to the team we traded with because of that nasty "top 3 protected clause"

With 100% sincerity I just don't see how we get around this. However, if someone can demonstrate that is possible I'd be happy to rethink the argument.

"We only have one rule on this team. What is that rule? E.L.E. That's right's, E.L.E, and what does E.L.E. stand for? EVERYBODY LOVE EVERYBODY. Right there up on the wall, because this isn't just a basketball team, this is a lifestyle. ~ Jackie Moon

is the debate whether or not we should be mortgaging the whole team to hopefully get a player 2 drafts from now....I'm all for it but how does it work? (I don't mean that sarcastically) I am really skeptical that the ideas presented in this thread are even close to possible....

(I am also really scared that I will be insulted for having a different opinion than the person starting the thread)

I am a huge Calderon fan, but I question how any plan can be a "future looking, long-term building plan" when extending Calderon (will be 32 at the start of next season) is a cornerstone. By the time a core starting lineup of Ross, Valanciunas and any TBD rookies are ready to compete for a deep playoff run, Calderon will very likely be retired.

Also, if Bargnani, DeRozan and Lowry (and others) are all going to be traded, I would seriously hope that they would combine to net more than a couple 2014 1st round draft picks in return. I would hope that at least 1 legit young talent would be acquired, who would be added to the core group going forward.

Basically I see this "plan" boiling down to a couple knee-jerk observations:
1. Our young guys (Valanciunas, Ross and Davis) have talent and potential, so there's still hope with them.
2. Calderon is a great distributor and has been key to our recent winning, so he's gotta stay forever.
3. Wiggins is getting lots of hype and is Canadian, so it's only natural he'll be this franchise's savior.
4. Everybody else is under the bus and useless for everything but going all-in for #3.

I think I'll just sit back and let a real GM - yes, even BC - manage the team's roster, thank you.

The best chance of getting a draft pick to land Wiggins is for three things to happen (in my opinion):

1) Get a draft pick from a so called 'contender' that ends up being a 'pretender' (like this years Lakers team). A team like that will most likely not offer protections since they consider themselves so great. NY is a good example of this in my opinion (note: Denver has it.... trade Bargnani to Denver for that pick (Denver has a big enough TPE so they do not have to big back a player if they don't want to)).

2) Hope that 'contender' ends up in the lottery in 2014. NY is playing really well this year, but it is NY and they could fall a part next year especially when everyone is one year older.

3) Hope that 'contender' wins the lottery.

What Cleveland did to get Irving is unlikely now a days. Most teams do not have a bad enough contract that they would be willing to give up an unprotected first rounder to shed the salary, and if they did they would have used their amnesty on that player already (like Philly did with Brand). If the amnesty card was available to the Clippers I'm sure they would have used it instead of giving away their first round pick.

is the debate whether or not we should be mortgaging the whole team to hopefully get a player 2 drafts from now....I'm all for it but how does it work? (I don't mean that sarcastically) I am really skeptical that the ideas presented in this thread are even close to possible....

(I am also really scared that I will be insulted for having a different opinion than the person starting the thread)

you are right to be skeptical in my opinion. most of the ideas in this thread are not likely or possible.

first of all the constant whining of keep Calderon is a continued bewilderment. raps are 1-16 vs plus.500 teams.

jv, Ross have potential but most potential becomes average at best.... but the potential for more is there. C I the hardest position to fill and jv appears to be a starting C long term. Ross is the 3 and D I have dreamed of. he looks like a solid 6th man and if he can get a handle maybe starter.

As for dd, ab returning lottery picks..... lol.... in 2014 lolx2. The raps would have to take on some horrible contracts for that to happen and even then unlikely. the right to swap picks would also be good and more likely IMO.

2014 is not about just wiggins. a lot can change in 1.5 years but there are a number of solid sf in 14 draft.

anything that can add picks is a good thing. I am not sure the raps have the assets to get t done. they certainly don't have the financial flexibility which is why I am ready for a new GM.